Banjos Quotes

• The banjo is such a happy instrument--you can't play a sad song on the banjo - it always comes out so cheerful.

  Steve Martin

  Funny, Song, Humor

  17 Copy quote

• Nothing says 'dropping out of society' like learning the banjo.

  Daniel Roth

  Dropping Out, Dropping

  9 Copy quote

• A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

  Mark Twain

  Music, Play, Gentleman

  92 Copy quote

• There's many a good tune played by an old banjo.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Tunes, Aging

  10 Copy quote

• A banjo will get you through times of no money, but money won't get you through times of no banjo

  John Hartford

  Rough Times, No Money

  21 Copy quote

• This banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

  Pete Seeger

  Hate, Surrender, Force

  10 Copy quote

• When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose, -- when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!

  Mark Twain

  Home, Piano, Want

  Mark Twain (1979). “Early Tales and Sketches 1864-1869”, p.235, Univ of California Press

  12 Copy quote

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• The banjo is truly an American instrument, and it captures something about our past.

  Steve Martin

  Past, Capture, Instruments

  6 Copy quote

• The banjo am the instrument for me.

  Grandpa Jones

  Instruments

  9 Copy quote

• Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses.

  Edward Abbey

  Religious, Horse, Crazy

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.11, RosettaBooks

  16 Copy quote

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• Whenever a big white man picks up a banjo, my cheeks tighten.

  Robin Williams

  Men, White Man, Bigs

  "Fictional character: Bob Munro". "RV", www.imdb.com. 2006.

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• The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils, but give me the banjo.

  Mark Twain

  Girl, Skeletons, Lunch

  Mark Twain (1979). “Early Tales and Sketches 1864-1869”, p.235, Univ of California Press

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• I feel sorry for little babies... When a little baby is born into this cold world, he's confused! He's frightened! He needs something to cheer him up... The way I see it, as soon as a baby is born, he should be issued a banjo!

  Charles M. Schulz

  Baby, Cheer, Sorry

  8 Copy quote

• Like, What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside?

  Jackson Browne

  Player, Would Be, Porsche

  80 Copy quote

• Set your guitars and banjos on fire and before you write a song smoke a pack of whiskey and it'll all take care of itself.

  Beck

  Song, Writing, Fire

  10 Copy quote

• I went to my room and packed a change of clothes, got my banjo, and started walking down the road. Soon I found myself on the open highway headed east.

  Burl Ives

  Easter, Walking Away, Clothes

  Burl Ives (2017). “Wayfaring Stranger”, p.120, Pickle Partners Publishing

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• I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

  Theodore Bikel

  Guitar, Weapons, Causes

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  25 Copy quote

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• My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself.

  Carl Sandburg

  Cutting, Wire, Firsts

  6 Copy quote

• I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.

  Bela Fleck

  Thinking, Years, White

  8 Copy quote

• When I got out of school, I spent two years just hitchhiking around. Every time I met some old farmer who could play banjo, I got him to teach me a lick or two. Little by little, I put it together.

  Pete Seeger

  School, Years, Play

  Source: www.folkmusicworldwide.com

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• Mind you, I've always been musical... Mother used to sit me on her knee and I'd whisper, 'Mummy, Mummy, sing me a lullaby do,' and she'd say: 'Certainly my angel, my wee bundle of happiness, hold my beer while I fetch me banjo.'

  Les Dawson

  Mother, Angel, Beer

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  34 Copy quote

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• My grandfather played a mandolin, so I got my hands on that. Then on down to a banjo, and I found I couldn't play any kind of soft or mournful music with that so I took up the fiddle in my late 20s or early 30s - and that was far too late. But it keeps me off the streets. It has been a love of mine since I was 17 maybe.

  Brendan Gleeson

  Hands, Play, Grandfather

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.

  Carl Sandburg

  Long, Saxophone

  Carl Sandburg, “Jazz Fantasia”

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• In the United States, many people said you can't have folk music in the United States because you don't have any peasant class. But the funny thing was, there were literally thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who loved old time fiddling, ballads, banjo tunes, blues played on the guitar, spirituals and gospel hymns. These songs and music didn't fit into any neat category of art music nor popular music nor jazz. So gradually they said well let's call it folk music.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Art, Hymns

  Source: www.folkmusicworldwide.com

  8 Copy quote

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• I would get records by Earl Scruggs... I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. Learned how to play that way. I persevered. There was a book written by Pete Seeger, who showed you some basic strumming and some basic picking... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing.

  Steve Martin

  Song, Book, Play

  7 Copy quote